


Visions and Regrets; A Wish, Fulfilled

by LJMouse



Series: Gifts & Prompts [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: M/M, Mech Preg, Spark Sexual Interfacing, Sticky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 06:14:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9165616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LJMouse/pseuds/LJMouse
Summary: Written for Cosmicat.Ratchet believes he is too old to have children, but he always wanted them.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cosmicat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmicat/gifts).



> You can find me on tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ljmouse.

Smokescreen was giggling.

Ratchet, focused on calibrating a scanner, tried to tune them out. However, Smokescreen's continued laughter, followed by Bee's shrill beeps of outrage, echoed off the walls. He could scarcely think for all the noise coming from main room's upper level.

"C'mon, Bee! Stop it!" Smokescreen shouted. "That tickles!" 

Bee warbled something that Ratchet didn't quite catch, but this time it was Smokescreen's turn to squeal a protest. 

"Will you two get a room?!" Ratchet shouted, in annoyance.

There was a loud crash of falling equipment, followed by twin cries of, "Sorry Ratchet!" -- one in English, from Smokescreen, and the other in beeps from Bee.

"Whatever that was, I needed it," Ratchet grumped, provoking a chuckle from June, who was seated cross-legged on a work table next to his scanner. 

"Does 'get a room' even translate to you guys?" June asked, with a grin. "If they were human, I'd genuinely be wondering, but ..."

Ratchet huffed a sigh. "We're not so dissimilar, June, and ..."

"Bee!" Smokescreen yelped. "Your hands are cold!" 

"Right. We're not dissimilar." 

"But ..." June started to say, then regarded him skeptically, for a long moment. She frowned, clearly mulling over what to ask. 

He took pity on her. "I've told you before that we are alive, June. We're not mere automatons. We love, just like you do, and desire each other, too -- I expect that lust is what all that noise up there is about. Just like any other life form, we reproduce, and most of us are hard coded to seek out suitable life partners." 

The mention of reproduction reminded him that he needed to have a chat with Smokescreen. Bumblebee already had his baffle installed, because he was slightly older and had joined while they were still available to soldiers. Smokescreen, just a bit younger, had signed up too late for the installation of a baffle to be part of the routine Autobot intake process.

Unfortunately, the lack of a baffle was an issue for the two young mechs. The team didn't particularly need bitlets underfoot, nor did they need a soldier out of commission for years while he gestated. 

So. He needed to have a talk with Smokescreen ...

"Bee! You're going to scratch my paint!" 

... before the flirting turned more serious.

"You mean you could have a ... baby?" June looked at him with something between shock and awe in her expression. 

"Me? Not me. I'm old, June. We are a very long lived race, but we are not immortal, and as our sparks cool with age, so does our ability to reproduce. I am towards the end of my natural lifespan, and I no longer have sufficient energy to create a sparkling." 

"Oh. Did you ever have children?"

"No, I didn't." He managed to keep any emotion out of his voice by defaulting to a curt answer. He had regrets. He changed the subject with, "Smokescreen and Bee are young, however -- both are the equivalent of older -- young adult -- teenagers, with a similar hormonal drive."

Bee beeped something at Smokescreen that Ratchet didn't quite catch, but it ended in a rising warble of profanity that abruptly cut off. Metal clanged against metal. Smokescreen laughed. Bee's next beep trailed off, but the groan that followed sounded like it had come from Smokescreen's vocaliser.

Ratchet opened his mouth to repeat the request that they 'find a room' with more urgency; he had no issue with discussing the generalities of Cybertronian reproduction with June, but she didn't need a crash course on the specifics. Ratchet, for his part, just didn't want to know the details.

"Bee, we gotta stop," Smokescreen said, suddenly, before Ratchet could speak up with a sterner demand, "Seriously, we can't do this." 

Ratchet looked up as the young soldier hurried down the stairs. Smokescreen said,  "I'm going out on patrol, Ratchet," at the medic, and then transformed and headed for the exit in a rush.

Bee was next down the steps, evidently intending to follow Smokescreen, and Ratchet said, a bit sharply, "Bee, let him go." 

Bumblebee, arms folded across his chest, beeped in a worried tone,  _ What did I do?  _

"Probably nothing, kiddo," Ratchet said. "When Smokescreen comes back, just ask him why he felt he had to leave. And keep your hands to yourself until you hear his answer." 

Bee warbled something that sounded anxious, and disappeared down one of the side tunnels. That tunnel led to the room they used as a makeshift shooting range; likely, Bumblebee was about to take his hormones and angst out on some targets. Ratchet approved of that method of emotional release wholeheartedly; it was one he used himself on a regular basis.

"What is up with Smokescreen?" June asked, after Bee was gone.

Ratchet shrugged. "I'll talk to him. I'm not sure."

"So ..." June asked him, "... are they gay, or does it work differently for you?"

"We're genderless, actually," Ratchet poked at his scanner. The image on the screen was still a bit out of focus; Bulkhead had knocked it off a table the day before. "We present as male -- or in the case of Arcee, as female -- because it serves a social purpose when interacting with humans, but biologically speaking, Cybertronians do not have gender per se. You might call us hermaphrodites, though even that's not a perfect analogy. 'Hermaphrodite'," and here he made air quotes with his fingers, "implies that we are two sexes in one being, and that is not how our biology  works. We are all the same gender, and we only have one sex." 

"That's fascinating." She was looking at him with a genuinely interested expression. "So how does reproduction actually work for your species?" 

Ratchet flashed her a smile. He approved of her frank approach to the matter; most humans that he'd met tended to be embarrassed by the subject. She was, however, a nurse, and likely discussed intimate matters with her patients regularly.

"All living Cybertronians have a spark," he touched his chest plates, "which is an organized ball of plasma energy at our core, protected inside a chamber of living metal. It defines us as a species. Some think it is our soul, others that it is a direct conduit to our creator, and others still that it is a captive portal to another dimension with far different physical laws. Nobody is entirely certain as even to our advanced science, sparks are something of a mystery."

She listened, clearly fascinated.  

"Sparks may have certain traits that influence our abilities and our appearance. Particularly strong sparks -- like Optimus's or Ultra Magnus's -- are referred to as outliers, though Bumblebee sometimes calls them Superhero Sparks. They have special gifts. For the most part, though, sparks are simply our life force."

"That's really interesting. How are sparks formed?"

"There's a few ways. Sometimes they come into being spontaneously. Other times, mecha deliberately split shards off their sparks, though this has some undesirable side effect."

Ratchet fiddled with the scanner for a second, before saying, "Away from Earth the most likely -- maybe only -- way we could reproduce would be by natural gestation."

"Baby robots?" June asked, with a smirk.

"When two Daddy robots love each other very much ..." Ratchet replied, with a grin back.

She threw a bolt at him from a bucket of them on the work table.

"In all seriousness, yes, baby robots. The process is no more complicated than human gestation, just different. We merge our sparks together -- which is pleasurable and also done for recreation, I might add -- and, assuming one doesn't have a spark baffle installed, a sparkling might be created. That's a baby spark."

"Spark baffle?"

"Birth control. It interrupts the spark energy just enough to prevent quantum harmonization and thus prevents conception, while still allowing for intimacy." 

"That's fascinating." She sounded truly interested.

He leaned against the table, and continued, "Sparklings generally inherit the spark traits of their creators. Sometimes they also have random mutations that may or may not be beneficial. That would, I suppose, be similar to how an egg and a sperm merge to form offspring that carry the genetic traits of both human parents." 

"Yeah, sounds like it." 

"Once a sparkling is formed, it incubates in the carrier's spark chamber for a few of your earth months, and grows in strength and stability during this time. This is the most common time for a sparkling to be lost, usually due to a flaw in the makeup of the spark. It's also the easiest time to terminate a gestation, should the carrier decide to do so -- and I would add that this choice is as fraught with emotion as it is for any human mother." 

He didn't mention how many sparklings he'd had to terminate in his career. He didn’t like to think about it, but it had been necessary. A war was no time to be raising a child, particularly if the carrier was also a soldier who was needed in combat and battles and lives would be lost without them. 

He really needed to talk to Smoky.  Gestation would prevent him from fighting for at least half the carry, because he wouldn't be able to transform and his armor wouldn't completely cover his abdominal organs. They couldn't spare Smokescreen from combat, but Ratchet also knew that Smoky and Bee would both take a termination very badly. The two kids had been through scrap in their lives, and he resolved to make sure they didn't have to deal with that kind of emotional baggage on top of everything else.

Unfortunately, he didn't have a baffle for Smoky. He might be able to give them some blunt advice on other fun activities to do that didn't involve merging -- and likely embarrass both of them into an early termination in the process. However, in the end, there was no substitute for an intimate merge with one's conjunx. He was pretty sure that ‘conjunx’ was the direction that the pair of youngsters was headed, too, and good for them.

Thinking about merging made him think about Optimus, who had been gone for days. He distracted himself with a shake of his head. "You know, you have the birds and the bees lecture. We have the nuts and bolts talk." 

She chuckled. "That does make more sense than calling it 'the birds and the bees'." 

"Yes, yes. Anyway, while the sparkling is maturing, a mech's gestation chamber begins to construct a protoform -- a fetal Cybertronian body. The carrier's nanytes will scavenge metal from their frame, sometimes to a rather detrimental degree, if the carrier doesn't receive regular donations of protomass from his partner during this process."

She gave him a suddenly suspicious look. "And how are these donations accomplished?"

He could have given her a clinical description, but opted for a better response. He made a circle with the forefinger and thumb of one hand, and stuck a finger from other hand into the circle, and made a gesture that was intantly recognizable as a simulation of intercourse across species lines. He did it just to see her face, and to yank her chain a bit.

She threw another bolt at him. It spanged off his Autobot insignia. She had excellent aim. "You're shitting me." 

"I'm not. Would I lie to you?" Ratchet said, raising both eyebrows. 

She looked down at his crotch, lifted an eyebrow, and said, "Seriously." 

Apparently, the nurse could give as good as she got. Ratchet resisted the hide his interface panel from her level gaze with a hand. Instead, he grabbed a datapad from his subspace, downloaded a "nuts and bolts" sex education manual onto it, and handed it to her. The language was in Cybertronian, but the illustrations of a generic Cybertronian minus his modesty panels were plenty clear. Spike. Valve. Both mechs had them. Tab A went into Slot B. It was all rather similar to human intercourse, though the purpose wasn't precisely the same.

"And interfacing is fun too," he added, when she handed the datapad back to him. "We do it recreationally, just like humans do, and for all the same reasons." 

She'd stood up when he handed her the datapad. Now, she stood with her hands on her hips, and a smirk on her face, and said, "I believed you, up until now."

"Yes, yes. All lies," he agreed, though he had been telling the truth.

Later, he would find out that she had cornered Wheeljack the next day and had verified what he'd told her was true. Wheeljack had related the story of that conversation to Ratchet between howls of laughter, then had asked, "But doc, should we really tell the humans about our biology?"

He'd shrugged. "I don't see why not. It's not like it's a secret." 

* * *

 

Ratchet planned to talk to Smokescreen, but in the end, Smokescreen found him first.

The others were away: on patrol, out with the kids, or taking June to work. Ratchet had work to do in the med bay, and was babysitting the space bridge in case anyone needed a rescue. Smokescreen was supposed to be mopping the floors. Everyone took a turn at janitorial duty, even Optimus, and today was Smokescreen's day to clean.

Smokescreen leaned the mop against the wall next to a dirty bucket of water, and slouched into Ratchet's med bay far too casually for this to be just a social visit. 

"What's up, kid?"

"Nothing." Smokescreen stood there, weight shifting from foot to foot, and gaze focused on a fascinating oil spot on the floor. Ratchet made a mental note to have Smoky mop the med bay too.

"Then go away, you're bugging me." And that was true. He had work to do, and no time for mechanisms who couldn't just spit out what they wanted.

"Ratchet," Smokescreen said, "Bee and I ..." 

"You've been clanging components. I know. You're loud." Ratchet glanced up from his work, in time to see Smokescreen try to hide his embarrassment and fail. The kid looked mortified. _Good_. They'd woken Ratchet up last night.

"Umm." Smokescreen fidgeted. "Umm, we've just 'faced. We haven't merged. But Bee wants to. And, umm, I want to. I want to know him, Ratchet."

Ratchet set the screwdriver he was holding down, and really focused on the young soldier. "And you don't have a baffle, and you need one." 

"Yeah. I haven't told Bee."

"Why not?"

"It ... it's hard to talk about that kind of stuff. Sheesh, Ratchet!"

"Hard? Try this: 'Bee, I don't have a baffle. If we merge, I could conceive. It's not worth the risk.' See? Not so hard." 

Smokescreen said plaintively, "You don't understand, Ratchet!" 

"I'm old, not dead. Trust me, I understand." 

Smokescreen started to protest.

"Trust me, I understand. As far as I'm concerned, Optimus the hottest thing on two legs and yeah, merging is awesome, and fun, but it's not worth risking conception over." 

Smokescreen's field was rich with mortified embarrassment, and a little bit of shock. The others -- who had not known Optimus since he'd been a sexy geek of a glorified librarian -- did not look at the Prime in those terms. Prime was wise, and noble, and dignified, and old. He wasn't supposed to be an object of sexual desire. He wasn’t supposed to have an active and fulfilling sex life with a cranky old medic.

"I was your age when I met Optimus," Ratchet pointed out, then added, just to be cruel and make the kid squirm more, "and I could tell you all what he was like then ... and he's even better now. More handsome, too, if you ask me." 

"Ratchet!" Smokescreen protested. "Look, I know you're screwing with me. Can you take this seriously? Please?"

"I do." Ratchet said, and let his field expand with sympathy. "Kiddo, you've got a raw deal here, and I know it. If you want, I actually can give you some ideas on things to do with Bee that you might not have thought of, and that's a serious offer. It's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"I want to merge," Smokescreen, plaintively. "I want to know him. Ratchet, we're the last of our kind, and we're fighting for our lives, and either of us could die at any minute. I don't want to die without knowing him, but I know we can't risk me conceiving, either. Isn't there anything you can do?"

Ratchet couldn't help but think how he would feel if he could never merge with Optimus. He loved Optimus to the core of his being, and Optimus loved him back, and there was absolutely nothing else in the universe like a merge. It wasn't just about the considerable physical pleasure, but also the connection and intimacy that came with it. 

Smokescreen was right. They could die in combat tomorrow, either one of them, and they would die never having known the true joy of a merge with one's conjunx. 

It was utterly unfair, Ratchet thought, because he had a baffle and he no longer even needed it ...

His thoughts ground to a halt, for a second, and then he looked over at Smokescreen and said quietly, "I can get a baffle for you. We'll install it tomorrow."

"Where?"

"Don't ask. It's second hand, but I'll make sure it's properly cleaned first."

Smokescreen hesitated. 

"I'll autoclave the damn thing, don't worry. It's not from a dead mech, just one who didn't need it anymore." 

"Okay," Smokescreen said, and his field brightened. "Thanks, Ratchet. You're the best."

"Mmmhmm. Don't mention it."  
  


* * *

 

The truth was, Ratchet hadn't needed his for a long time. He was too old, his spark too cool, to ever conceive a sparkling. However, taking it out was harder than he expected ... for reasons. The technical end was easy. The emotional side was far more difficult. 

He didn't tell Smokescreen where it came from. That seemed too personal, and too strange. Smokescreen didn't ask. Ratchet just cleaned it, and installed it, and sent the grateful young soldier on his way.  
  


* * *

 

Megatron and Optimus got into a fight over an artifact the following day, and Ratchet had more important things to worry about than a quiet grief that would, he thought, forever haunt him to the day he died. A silly thing, that sorrow when so many had lost so much, and yet he found himself mourning for mechanisms that had never even been.

Now distracted from his own private thoughts, he listened to the battle over the comms with hot anxiety, fists clenched and jaw set, as Optimus shouted commands and grunted with the effort of combat and the pain of hard blows. This was a familiar fear, but one which he could never grow accustomed.

He feared that one day he'd listen to his conjunx die over the comms, and would be unable to do anything to stop it. Someday, he or Optimus might be alone. Odds were, it would be Ratchet, though Optimus had proven incredibly hard to kill. The Pit knew Megatron had tried often enough..

If Optimus survived long enough, the Prime would outlive Ratchet -- not because Optimus was younger, because they were only a few orns apart in age, but because of the Matrix. The Matrix not only reformatted its hosts, but it changed their very spark. Primally touched sparks remained young for eternity. Primes could be killed, but they would not die of old age.

Optimus survived this war, though Megatron retreated with some Doodad of Doom in his clutches. Dented, smelling of smoke, dirt and energon, with a scuff on his cheek and blistered paint on his shoulder, Optimus walked through the space bridge.

Ratchet did not cry out greeting to him, nor run to embrace him. Instead, he said grouchily, "Look at you! You're a mess. Optimus, I swear you look like you've been wrestling in the mud with a Titan." 

Optimus didn't smile back. He rarely smiled anymore at all, and never in public. "Ratchet, I am uninjured."

"I’ll be the judge of that. Those dents do not look uninjured to me." A scan showed that Optimus was essentially correct, however. The energon smeared across his plating wasn't his, and everything else was superficial. Megatron's fusion cannon had probably caused the seared patch on his shoulder, but the burns were only paint deep. A couple feet to the right and it would have been Prime’s head in the path of that shot, rather than a glancing burn to his shoulder. Ratchet tried not to think that one day, Optimus might not duck fast enough and Ratchet would be left alone.

Besides, knowing Optimus, he wouldn't die of something stupid. He would go out in some dramatic blaze of glory, having sacrificed himself for all of Cybertron. Routine battles were not how Primes died, right?

"See to the others. I need to speak to Fowler." Optimus's optics above his mask softened, just for moment, and his field licked at Ratchet as he passed. It was full of apology, and promise for later that made Ratchet's circuits heat. He kept a straight face, but only barely.

* * *

 

None of the others were badly damaged either, but all had minor issues. It took him most of the day to repair them; only when everyone else was finished did Optimus show up in the med bay doorway.

"Optimus." Ratchet said, unable to hide the relief in his field at the sight of his conjunx. All he said was Optimus's name; it was enough.

"You should rest."

Optimus, Ratchet noted, had visited the wash racks. The dirt was gone. So was the charred and blistered paint on his shoulder; he'd scrubbed it off, and applied a sealing primer himself to the raw metal. He needed a repaint, and the dents pulled, but he looked a lot better. 

"I've got work to do, Optimus." 

"Ratchet?" One word, and it wasn't a command. It was a request. Optimus might give him orders with the same degree of authority that he did the rest of the team in public, but in private, he was painfully careful never to dominate Ratchet. They were equals in this relationship, and Optimus never forgot it.

They'd spent an eon together, and Ratchet knew what Optimus wanted from long experience. Optimus thought he'd been working too hard. "Yes, yes. I can take a break already." 

Optimus, behind his mask, smiled. The corners of his optics crinkled, and the arch of his cheeks lifted up a little. His field relaxed. 

As Ratchet passed him, headed for the door, Optimus's hand rested casually on his back. It was just a brief pressure, a brush of the fingers to his plating, but it sent a sudden rush of heat through Ratchet's neural network. 

Optimus followed him, just close that he could feel the warmth and affection in the Prime's field. Optimus was caring towards everyone, but Ratchet knew that particular note in his field was reserved just for him. 

They passed Wheeljack on the way to their suite; Jacky grinned as they walked by, but said nothing. Not even Wheeljack dared to actually tease when Optimus was in earshot, though he'd probably harass Ratchet later. While the younger mecha on the team were willfully and deliberately oblivious, Wheeljack was a lot older, difficult to embarrass, and he was, well, Wheeljack. 

Ratchet put an extra and exaggerated sway in his hips for Wheeljack's benefit, and Jacky made a noise that started out as a snort and ended as a strangled laugh. Optimus was probably frowning behind his mask as he followed Ratchet down the hall, but Ratchet was close enough to feel the Prime's own amusement. Optimus might come across as a perpetually grave and dignified mech, with less of a sense of humor than Ultra Magnus, but Ratchet knew better. Buried not particularly deeply under his emotional armor was a mech who had once laughed regularly, and who was still regularly amused by the actions of others even when he did not show it. 

Inside their quarters, Ratchet let out a long, slow, sigh, and turned to face his conjunx. "I wish you'd let me tend to you."

"Later. My damage is minor, as you are well aware." Optimus shut the door, and locked it, and then stood so close to Ratchet that their fields were intermingled in a swirl of EM. "You are troubled by something, and it is not the battle." 

Ratchet took one step forward, rested both palms on Optimus's windshield, and then pressed his helm there too. He could hear the steady hum of Optimus's spark, and the warmth of his plating, and the reassuringly smooth thrum of his power plant. Optimus's field engulfed him, and Optimus's hands, large and strong, pulled him close. Just for a moment, he imagined they were young again -- an up and coming medic, and an apprentice archivist named Orion Pax, falling in love and oblivious to their future. He remembered a time just after they'd spoken their vows as conjunx.

Back then, he had their future all mapped out. Optimus's career would take off, as he'd already attracted the attention of Alpha Trion. Ratchet had expected Orion to land a comfortable and important job in the Hall of Records. 

Ratchet had his career as a physician, and his clinic too. He had money, and a rewarding occupation, and life was comfortable.

They’d talked about buying an apartment in one of the nicer areas of town, and had even gone to look at a few. 

More importantly, they had talked about offspring. Ratchet had a quiet desire for offspring, though back then it had not seemed urgent. They had all the time in the world, and he wanted to create the old-fashioned way, because he wanted children who had Orion's genetics. That would have meant taking a few solar cycles off of work while he gestated, so they had put it off. 

Orion had been so tall, so handsome, and so brilliantly intelligent. Orion's spark had tested in the outlier range, but you'd never know it by the way he acted. He was humble and gentle, passionate and kind, and Ratchet could think of nothing better than to create children with his conjunx. Just ... not right away.

And then the war had come, and Orion’s Primacy, and Ratchet's position as CMO to the whole army. Their responsibilities had consumed his life. Hard times had come, and brutal losses, and so much tragedy. Their world was dead, their species nearly extinct and scattered to all the farthest corners of the multiverse, and yet the war continued. 

He’d never had the children he wanted. He’d always put it off, for good reasons, but reasons he regretted.. One day, he’d woken up to find it was just too damn late, and those younglings would never come to be. 

"Ratchet?" Optimus's voice yanked him back to the present,.

"Sorry, Optimus." He reached up, sliding his hands along Optimus's chest. "Smokescreen needed a baffle." 

"This reminded you of your age?" Optimus was well aware of how Ratchet felt. When a routine medical diagnostic had revealed to Ratchet that his spark could no longer support a sparkling, Ratchet had spent the night curled in Optimus's arms, numb with unexpected grief.

"No, what reminded me of my age," he bit out, "was giving him  _ mine _ . I don't exactly need it any more, and I'm sure he's going to make very good use of it." 

Optimus sighed. "That was kind of you." 

"Don't tell him where it came from." 

"As you wish." Optimus pressed a kiss to Ratchet's helm.

Ratchet said, "I need you, tonight, Orion.." 

it was rare for him to ask for comfort from Optimus. They had a passionate interfacing life, certainly, but he didn't often need emotional support. Optimus had so many problems, and responsibilities, and worries of his own that Ratchet tried not to burden him unduly. Ratchet, too, had his own duties, and a few eons of life experience meant he had perspective, as well. Things younger mecha stressed over were just not worth any sort of drama to Ratchet.

But right now ... right now, he did need his conjunx. He needed  _ Orion _ , the mech he’d fallen in love with. The finality of giving up his spark baffle seemed like a crushing weight on his spark.

"Of course."  Optimus said, and with a hand on Ratchet's shoulder, he guided him towards the large berth they shared. 

For a bit, he lost himself in Optimus's arms. His conjunx was skilled, and knew every inch of his frame. He cried out with joy when Optimus entered him, and his grief was forgotten as he thought only of Optimus, of his conjunx, of the mech he loved with all his spark. 

He had intended only to interface, not merge, but as they shuddered to completion his chest plates parted of their own accord. Optimus, ventilating hard, propped himself up on his hands over Ratchet and looked down at him, and then said, "I don't believe I've ever seen your spark without a baffle before it."

"No, you haven't." Orion hadn’t been Ratchet’s first lover, by far. However, once he’d met Orion, nobody else had ever tempted him.

"Will you merge with me?" Optimus asked.

Ratchet couldn't avoid the sharp pang of grief in his spark, at the thought. Again, he thought of what might have been. But he shunted that aside, and he focused on the mech whose weight rested so comfortably on top of him, and he said, "Always. Always, Optimus." 

When Optimus's armor slid aside in a complicated tessellation of plates to reveal his chamber, then the spark within, it should have felt familiar. They'd done this many thousands of times before. Optimus's spark was bare of a baffle, as the Matrix itself prevented him from conceiving, and it was strong and bright, as if Optimus were still as young as the day they'd met. Ratchet’s spark was noticeably dimmer, and he tried not to think about that.

Ratchet reached up and traced a finger along the edge of the chamber, even as Optimus gazed down at him. Optimus groaned at his touch, and his field surged wildly around them, meshing and swirling with Ratchet's. 

He wondered what it would be like to merge without his baffle. In his entire long life he’d never done so once, with anyone. Sometimes, he wished he'd been a little less careful. If he'd been reckless with Orion, in the early days of their relationship, might they have accidentally ended up with the children they had both always desired? He'd always been responsible, and careful, even checking his baffle for loosened connections after combat or physical trauma (and twice, finding issues that could have led to conception, which he had corrected before their next merge.) Now, sometimes he regretted that caution. If only he'd been a little less responsible ...

Optimus slowly, gently, lowered himself so that his spark pressed into Ratchet's. Ratchet cried out, as everything that Optimus was became part of him. The wisdom, and the strength, and the patience, and the kindness ... and above it all, love for Ratchet. Ratchet was his conjunx; his lifelong partner, and his best friend, and his intimate lover. 

Optimus saw him in much the same way: The Prime's regard for Ratchet was always immensely flattering. Optimus loved Ratchet for his inner strength, and his courage, and his unshakeable moral foundation. Ratchet would do whatever it took to do the right thing, and he feared no one when his ire was raised. Optimus admired him for that, and loved him for it, and was unshakably proud of him.

... Something was different, though, in this merge.

Without the baffle between them, Ratchet's spark was exposed to the full, unshielded, touch of the Matrix. He cried out in surprise as the ancient artifact suddenly inserted itself between them. It saw his griefs, and his dreams, and his desires ...

And the Matrix had an awareness, and an agenda, all its own. 

Optimus was the last of the Primes. 

The Matrix found Ratchet suitable to carry his offspring, and to donate genetic material to a child who might become Prime someday.

"But I cannot!" Ratchet protested, aloud, even as Optimus surged up to kiss him, and his words were muffled into Optimus's mouth.

A paroxysm of pain-pleasure-change seized his spark, and spread through his whole sensory net. He threw his head back, and cried out, and Optimus's shout of alarm was lost to a feedback squeal in his audio sensors. 

Optimus's shock and fear rushed through his spark, for they were still merged together. Optimus cursed Primus aloud, even as he struggled to pull apart from Ratchet, and the language he used would have shocked any who heard it. He might have learned the words from Ratchet, but none had ever heard the Prime use profanity such as that before in his very long existence. He was convinced that Ratchet was being harmed ...

 

**_No harm will come of this._ **

 

The Matrix pulsed assurance at them, even as the sensations faded and were replaced by a swelling overload that took them both over the brink. The last thing that Ratchet was aware of was a pulling tug at his spark, and Optimus's shuddering cry of release.

* * *

 

Ratchet came to awareness slowly, as his circuits reset themselves. He felt good, in that post-merge kind of way: relaxed, warm, and well loved. Optimus was wrapped around him, one arm across his chest, one leg across his thighs, and his power plant humming comfortably against Ratchet’s side. 

Then he remembered that the Matrix had done something to him.

He jerked fully awake, initiating a systems scan as he did. Something had happened, he was certain of it. That uncanny artifact had meddled with his spark.

Alerts popped up on his HUD: 

  * _Conceptus detected_
  * _Conceptus stability normal_
  * _Procreation protocols initiated_
  * _Gestational tank online_
  * _Protoform construction at .01%_



"WHAT?" He said, aloud, with enough volume that it startled Optimus awake. The Prime jerked upright, battle protocols spinning up with a howl of fans and a scream of capacitors before his optics were even lit. Once he could see, he looked wildly around for a threat, then when none materialized, he sat there with his blaster humming and aimed at the ceiling while he stared in confusion at Ratchet.

"Stop that," Ratchet said, with slightly less apology than he normally would have, "You can't shoot this problem."

Optimus blinked at him for a long moment, then let his combat routines die down. "What happened?"

"We created a sparkling." Ratchet said, too shocked to actually feel anything yet. He triggered a series of diagnostics.  _ How? _

"... I thought that wasn't possible?"

"Yeah, well. Apparently I was wrong." 

Sudden comprehension crossed the Prime's face as he seemed to recall the events of the night before. Optimus reached over and put an arm around his shoulders. "The Matrix interceded, Ratchet."

"Oh, so it saw I wanted a sparkling and granted my wish? What do we get for the next two wishes, and do I have to rub your spark chamber each time?" Ratchet said, arms folding across his chest as soon as Optimus released him. "Because I'd really like an end to the war and billion more wishes." 

The diagnostics he was running were coming back with results that were unambiguous. In lay terms, he was definitely sparked. Moreover, the frequency of the spark indicated it would almost certainly be an outlier. His own spark had not been completely rejuvenated but the Matrix had somehow turned back time for him  _ just  _ enough to allow him to conceive one sparkling. That ancient artifact affected the sparks of the Primes who carried it, and apparently it could do the same for Prime's partner if there was no baffle in the way. 

Optimus smiled, but then he grew sober quickly. "I don't think that was it simply our desire alone. Had both of us not wished for a sparkling the Matrix would not have acted. However, Ratchet, I am the last of my lineage, and the Matrix may be ensuring that I have a successor when the time comes. I have been having visions of a young mech who will someday take my place for long while."

"... And you're only telling me this now?" Prime's dreams sometimes came true. 

"None live forever, Ratchet, and someday, another will lead us. I thought for a bit that Smokescreen might be the young Prime I see in my dreams, but he is not. I often see a brash young warrior, bold and proud, with courage and wisdom and charisma, living in a time of peace between factions but not a time without trouble." Optimus's gaze was a bit distant as he added, "He will have flames like mine, but he will favor red and orange ..."

Ratchet hummed. "You think that is the ... sparkling ... I carry?" It felt weird to say. He was carrying a sparkling. He'd thought it impossible.

"I believe so, yes." 

"Huh." Ratchet rubbed his chest plates. "I just wanted children, Optimus, and a normal life for you and I. I wanted a family.”

Optimus leaned over and pressed a kiss to his helm. "And now you shall have that. We will make certain that it is so for this child, who will someday lead us all." 


End file.
